Nymphomaniac Part 1 – **1/2

An older man who loves literature, fly fishing and polyphonic classical compositions finds a wounded woman on the street and takes her in to his apartment. She refuses to see a doctor or go the police, but prefers a cup of tea with some milk AND to recount the man her adventures as a nymphomaniac.

This first part of Lars von Trier’s latest cinematic project – you cannot really call it a movie – is intriguing enough to be anticipating the second part. You get to learn more about the main character Joe’s sex addiction, even though she refuses to see it as an addiction because she wants sex out of lust not out of necessity. And that’s basically it.

Maybe it’s me, but I didn’t see any lust in this woman’s expressions. Is that bad acting of the newcomer Stacy Martin? Not really. It’s just bad storytelling and bad directing. I am not a fan of Mr von Trier at all. I never get all the fuzz about his releases. But for every redundant scene (the first five minutes, Christian Slater getting his ass wiped after shitting himself, …), there’s a cool moment that makes this a cinema experience worth discovering (Rammstein blasting out of nowhere, the polyphonic sex session explanation, …) For the moment, I still feel that the woman (played by Charlotte Gainsbourg) is making the stuff up. But there’s a scene where her caretaker (Stellan Skarsgård) points out the silliness and incredibility of her stories , to which she replies “Do you prefer to believe what I say and be entertained or do you prefer to not believe it and be bored?”. Well, bored I wasn’t. In awe neither. Entertained yes.